At XpresServers, we constantly strive to deliver total customer satisfaction with all our hosting services. That’s why we offer fast, reliable and secure service that’s backed by our friendly, knowledgeable support team, 24/7.

Service

You’re a slave to your in-home wifi, your social interactions aretaking place behind a screen, and your work “watercooler” momentsare happening online, not around the office Keurig. But if you’re a business owner, those aren’t the only ways your working life has been transformed over the last few months.

Businesses are being profoundly affected by the global state of affairs. This is an unprecedented time for everyone, and as such, we’re learning to adapt and pivot how we do business.

“It’s absolutely critical for businesses to pivot right now because the economic environment has completely changed,” says Jeremy Knauff, CEO of Spartan Media. “You can’t keep doing what used to work because everything is different right now. We’re facing a Darwinian business event unfolding.”

Service professionals especially have been feeling the strain of how to transform their in-person business models into streamlined digital operations. Difficult? Absolutely. Impossible? We don’t think so.

In this guide, we’re outlining 10 creative and lucrative ways that your service-based business can continue to make money and provide value during quarantine, while still planting seeds for future growth.

Web Hosting Shouldn’t Be Your Biggest Challenge

We’ll make sure your website is fast, secure, and always up so your visitors trust you. Plans start at $2.59/mo.

10 Ways to Move Your In-Person Biz Online

1. Analyze Your Business Plan

Before you jump into a new money-making effort, it’s helpful to take a look at your business as it currently operates (or did, pre-pandemic). With that in mind, consider: What will pivoting really look like for your business?

“It could be a very small change in your business model, such as how you’ll deliver your services,” says Susana Fonticoba of Clear Path Marketing. “Or it could be a major change that disrupts the who, what, where, and how. Whatever changes you make in your business model, it must always satisfy the revenue you need to survive, the income you want to thrive, the type of clients you’ll serve, the clients’ deep goals, and the offers you’ll sell to fulfill it all.”

Take the restaurant industry, which has been hit particularly hard during quarantine. Many have pivoted by offering curbside and delivery service but have still faced massive loss. Na’ama Moran, co-founder and CEO of the restaurant supply company, Cheetah, took a unique approach to deal with her industry’s changing business landscape due to COVID-19. Moran switched from serving as a wholesale restaurant supplier into a grocery delivery service, selling direct to consumers.

“Moran leveraged Cheetah’s infrastructure, staff, inventory, and technology to provide a streamlined way for people to purchase food and cleaning supplies without any contact with other people,” Knauff explains. “This unique pivot enabled the company to continue moving their inventory while supporting their local community.

Related: How to Set up Curbside Pickup and Delivery Through Your Website

2. Adapt Your Services

Even if your business offers in-person service, there can be ways to safely continue providing those services — with necessary modifications and added digital provisions.

Take the recent adjustments made by lawn care company GreenPal. “We have changed up processes for how our vendor partners interact with their clients,” says Bryan Clayton, GreenPal co-founder. “We now have instituted a contactless procedure for when a homeowner hires a lawn care professional to mow their yard.”

Because of these adjustments in operations, GreenPal has “seen a 17% conversion rate in many of the markets that we operate in,” Clayton adds.

If your target audience is more hesitant to loosen the purse strings during an uncertain time, you can utilize digital tools to yield future growth.

“More than anything, people are afraid to spend money right now,” says Bri Henke, owner and Design Director at Dig. “Because everything that used to be guaranteed just isn’t anymore — jobs, food, school, toilet paper — nothing feels safe about our world right now. So spending money on a luxury, like design, is slowing down. Right now, people are thinking about what they want to change about their home, and for that, I am trying to build up an e-design/concept package level to my business where we don’t have to physically interact, but we can make some positive changes to their space”

Related: DreamHost’s Ultimate Small Business Resource Guide

3. Offer One-on-One Training or Tutorials

Even when you’re taking your business online, you can still provide that essential person-to-person experience indispensable to service-based businesses.

“A service is a personal experience,” says Jermaine Amado,photographer and owner of J Amado Photography. “It’s about building on the relationship with your client. So why not find a way to offer one-on-one support to your client through a video call? You could guide them through the process of taking photos, planning meals for the week, or a pedicure.”

And pivoting your business for COVID-19 helps you not only prepare for future economic challenges but offers you a chance to target new audiences.

“By offering one-on-one online photography courses and camera training, I feel like I was able to reach a new client base,” Amado says. “Adapting my services has allowed me to venture into an all-digital world where I don’t have to travel to offer my services.”

No matter what field of industry your business occupies, you can adapt to bring offerings online.

Related: How to Build an Awesome Online Store with WooCommerce

4. Offer Value Through Online Learning

In addition to providing virtual services, you can make the most of the digital landscape by sharing your hard-earned knowledge, while establishing yourself as an authority and building your brand visibility. This strategy can help your business remain viable during a crisis and attract clients.

For example, as a result of COVID-19, Southern Tax Preparation & Services moved from providing educational resources as part of its paid services to making those materials readily available through social media platforms and online communities, email campaigns, live video conferencing, and a podcast. This strategy shift is boosting the business in big ways.

“We are establishing ourselves as an authority in the accounting and finance industry, and our audience’s desire to establish and maintain a stable financial structure has also increased,” says Jasmine Young, MBA, CPA, CFE, andSouthern Tax founder. “The increase in revenue from client referrals to purchase services that assist in creating a stable financial foundation is an obvious indication that our decision to pivot . . . was a step in the right direction for our company, as our gross income for the past quarter was 75% of last year’s gross income for the entire year.”

The knowledge you have is valuable. Utilize it!

Related: Easily Set Up an Online Course on Your WordPress Website

5. Curate Customized Product Kits

Pivoting your traditional business in difficult times is necessary to establish multiple revenue streams to compensate for the loss of income from main offerings. This has been especially vital for hair salons in the UK, as governments may limit their re-opening for another six months.

HairCraze by Naomi, a salon in Wales, has innovated new strategies to offer value and boost its online business. They filmed a video on DIY haircutting, and a banner ad was placed on their website and Facebook page notifying visitors that the video is accessible to people who subscribe to their email or newsletter. According to their marketing company, this tactic has helped the business build up a stack of email addresses from potential customers to hit up and market to once the lockdown ends.

HairCraze by Naomi has also contacted their current clients that regularly utilize hair coloring services, offering to make dye for them based on their individual hair profile. These dyes can be mailed or delivered to customers at a discounted cost, helping them maintain color between salon visits — a better-than-boxed-dye solution at a cheaper-than-a-salon-visit price.

Now that’s creative innovation.

6. Learn and Incorporate New Tech

The health and fitness industry is seeing creative solutions to the prohibition on in-person gatherings as they seek to incorporate innovation and recoup lost earnings through digital offerings.

Soofi Safavi, an entrepreneur and hot yoga enthusiast, pivoted his yoga business to operate virtually during the pandemic. When COVID-19 caused him to close his studios, instructors struggled with online class logistics and lost income, and his customers were without the habits they needed for their physical and mental health. Safavi acted quickly to create Wizard.fit, an integrated fitness app that allows instructors to virtually teach classes, collect payment, and instruct in a way that simulates a live studio.

Adapting to offer your business’ services on a digital platform doesn’t have to be a lengthy process. With the right network and tools, you can get virtual offerings up and running fast.

“There are a myriad of opportunities available online for service-based workers,” said James Dyble, Managing Director ofGlobal Sound Group. “For example, if you’re a personal trainer, jump on YouTube and start providing your services with that method. Possibly, even have a membership website or a mentoring program. . . . If the content is right, then the revenue will follow.”

7. Improve How You Engage

Running a business behind a screen can be a challenge for service-based companies that rely on an in-person relationship. Use this time as an opportunity to refine and improve the ways that you engage and connect with audiences.

First, update your website during this crisis. Make sure your customers are aware of what new or adjusted services you’re providing during social distancing. Then, take connection a step further.

“As an events producer, I enable entrepreneurs, speakers, and organizations to have engaging events. Wow, did COVID-19 ever change that!” says Connie Zeller of C.Zeller Events. “I’m fortunate that I have amazing clients who could see the value of a pivot. While a virtual event can’t deliver the energy, physical connection, gift bags, food, and the overall live experience, it can still deliver an impactful message and reach the goals and visions of a live event.”

Thoughtfully consider and plan how you’re going to provide your winning service in digital environments. Without the in-person connection, your business needs to use available tech in innovative ways to prioritize your audiences and nurture relationships.

“Technology is allowing connection in such a productive way without having to leave your home,” Henke says. “So the opportunity to offer your clients your time still exists; it will just be through a screen. Reassuring your clients that they still get you, I think, is key in all of this — rather than just them feeling that they are only worth an email. [Clients] need to know that we are still there with them, it is just in a different capacity than before.”

Related: 20 Ways to Stay Social in an Age of Social Distancing

8. Expand Your Virtual Marketing Techniques

As a professional organizer, Diane Eisenstein, founder and “Chief Organization Officer” of The Tidy Abode, has been experimenting with the addition of virtual services to her in-person business, offering coaching via FaceTime, Skype, and Zoom.

“The most exciting part of it is that I have reached people from all around the country this way,” she says. “So many people staying at home want to be productive and get organized, but they get stuck on one part of the project. That’s where I come in! I give them advice on potential solutions and the products they need to get it done. I don’t get the big reveal moment at the end of a project, but I do see the ‘aha moments’ when I give my clients a suggestion that would work for their space.”

Social media is likely already a part of your marketing strategy, so continue to expand your social media techniques to boost business! Host live tutorials on Instagram, Facebook, Zoom, or Youtube Live so you can communicate with your supporters in the comments in real-time. You can then upload these videos online to boost engagement and visibility.

As a writer and vocal teacher forMusicGrotto.com, James Croad has been utilizing YouTube Tutorials to continue his vocal and guitar lessons remotely.

“As a service professional, the transition hasn’t been easy, but it wasn’t impossible either,” Croad says. “It just takes a little bit of ingenuity! Regardless of the service you provide, we live in a digital age where there are multiple online platforms that can improve your business regardless of the quarantine. If you’ve got some grit and are willing to experiment, you can find a goldmine of efficient and profitable business practices online.”

As you pivot and find things that work, market them vigorously.

“We are offering both free training and paid virtual 30-day masterminds to help businesses creatively explore their options and accordingly tweak or pivot their services,” says Janis Pettit, CEO of The 10x Zone.

“For example, one company provides in-home occupational therapy for special needs children, and their business was down 70%. They decided to try teletherapy and it was approved by the insurance companies. After testing it and getting great results, we developed an aggressive marketing plan to promote it. It’s working, and weekly visits are going up quickly. And the best part? They can now serve clients not just locally as before but in the entire state!”

Taking advantage of every opportunity to make $$$ (and build a loyal audience) can serve you well and help you develop the creative entrepreneurship needed to run a successful business, no matter the conditions.

Related: 12 Marketing Strategies to Promote Your Local Business

9. Expand Your Offerings

Why not try something completely new? Offering a novel service to clients can expand your business — and your audience.

“Since lockdown, I have recorded myself making healthy meals and putting them in the Whatsapp group that I have set up with my clients,” says Elliott Reimers, a certified nutrition coach at Rave Reviews. “They’re contributing a small amount each per month for these tips. In addition, I am making up batches of the meals I recorded and then dropping them outside clients’ houses once a week.”

By supplying unique offerings, checking in with clients, and keeping a positive attitude, you can meaningfully connect with your audiences and provide value.

How can other businesses do this?

Nail salons can curate and send clients boxes of supplies with illustrated (or video) instructions on how to care for their nails.

A massage therapist can film a video of how to pinpoint trouble spots in muscles and how a tennis ball or foam roller can alleviate the pain. Then they can sell and schedule a private one-on-one session via Zoom to walk through this process with the client.

An esthetician can schedule private video sessions to examine clients’ skin and recommend and order specific products for the client.

Physical trainers can provide virtual workouts or home-workout tips, creating video tutorials or doing it with them virtually to boost both of your physical activity and gains. They could also sell different protein shakes or guided meal plans.

Cleaning companies similarly can sell their cleaning products, supplied with step-by-step tutorials on how to clean various home spaces.

And all businesses can offer gift cards!

Related: How to Create a Content Marketing Strategy

10. Continue to Incorporate Digital Options

Bringing parts of your business online can be a massive benefit to you as you target new audiences and expand your offerings. So don’t stop that momentum when things return to business as (mostly) usual. Keep utilizing the power of tech to boost your business.

“One valuable aspect of a digital service-based business is the convenience factor,” Eisenstein says. “In-person services require travel time, prep time, and schedules that need to be matched up. Even after COVID-19 conditions end, I will most likely conduct consultations over video calls, plus I plan to incorporate more virtual coaching into my schedule so I can reach more people around the world.”

Looking for Remote Work Tips?

Whether you want to stay focused at home or increase team engagement, we can help! Subscribe to the DreamHost Digest so you never miss an article.

Re-Homing Your Business in a Digital Landscape

Pivoting your business into a digital landscape isn’t just valuable — it’s essential right now. Not only can virtual adaptation help you keep your business afloat, but it can ultimately help you run a better, more successful business in the future as you refine how you market, engage, and incorporate technology.

“The economic environment and marketplace have shifted, and the ‘new normal’ will not go back to the way things were,” Pettit says. “Businesses that don’t have a way to serve their customers’ needs as they are now will struggle or even fail. Look at businesses in the past that didn’t — Blackberry, MySpace, Sears, and many more. There is great opportunity here if you can creatively embrace it.”

If you want to get your business up-and-running online and flex those creative muscles, you need to start at the beginning: partnering with a great web host for your site. We can help you set up your online presence — at a safe, virtual distance.

Remote work demands efficient and always-on desktop as a service (DaaS) solutions that allow employees to work and collaborate at any time, from anywhere, on any device.

Because an increasing number of businesses are going completely or mostly remote and many others have a mix of full-time remote and in-office workers, providing a seamless and secure experience for employees across the board is no easy feat for IT teams.

DaaS solutions come from a third-party provider, companies do not have control of the backend infrastructure and must rely on the provider—ideally one with a robust SLA—for reliable and scalable service. Furthermore, traditional DaaS solutions take weeks to set up, with hours of planning and configuring before the client can put it to use.

To both meet growing demand and address the shortcomings of current remote desktop products, Denis Zhirovetskiy, president and founder of Adeptcore, a managed IT service provider (MSP) and INAP customer, created his own remote DaaS solution packaged for MSPs. In its first year, the product took off, boasting strong adoption and organic growth.

We sat down with Zhirovetskiy to learn more about Adeptcore, the Adeptcloud service and how the partnership with INAP has helped the company grow and scale from the very beginning.

Addressing SMB Remote Worker Needs

Adeptcore was founded with the purpose of helping a small- or medium-sized business (SMB) use their current technology and make it better, setting themselves apart from companies that sell pre-packaged, per-user or per-device plans.

“We heavily focus on onboarding clients. We can spend three months onboarding one client,” Zhirovetskiy said. “We invest that time because we want to know what each of our clients does for a living and how they’re generating revenue. From there, we tailor the technology to support that mission.”

In line with this purpose, Adeptcore launched Adeptcloud in June of 2018, after a peer in the MSP community requested to use Zhirovetskiy’s proprietary DaaS solution for a client. The MSP was surprised that Adeptcore was not using industry leaders in the market for DaaS solutions and wanted to see why they created their own. Zhirovetskiy explained that his key selling point was that his solution ran on Nimble SAN with SSD cache, ensuring greater performance and reliability. Other providers typically used spinning disks.

Zhirovetskiy realized the product would work for MSPs at large. To scale the product, he worked with Ray Orsini, owner of OITVOIP and one of the first Adeptcloud partners. This collaboration ensured that Adeptcloud worked with VoIP softphone technology. As he worked with Orsini, Zhirovetskiy discovered that he was also an INAP customer, and noted that this helped him certify that their products would work together.

“I started talking with other managed IT providers on an internet forum, and when they saw our solution, they immediately wanted to do something similar for their clients,” he said. “That’s honestly all the marketing I’ve ever done for it.”

From there, the product took off. During the first 12 months of business, from June 2018 to June 2019, Adeptcloud grew to have 65 partners across the U.S. and three internationally. Adeptcloud has users log on daily from Peru and New Zealand, and has clients working from India, Dubai and China.

Why Adeptcloud Stands Out

What exactly helped Adeptcloud take off so quickly? What sets it apart from other DaaS products?

Saving Time

First, Adeptcloud saves MSPs time. “We offer a ready-to-go solution in a box. All they have to do is fill out a form and within three days their customers are able to login and begin working. They don’t have to worry about it,” Zhirovetskiy said.

The Adeptcloud solution has been shown to reduce MSP ticket volumes by as much as 40 percent once the solution is deployed and user training is complete. Zhirovetskiy notes that his team generally goes two to three months without tickets from clients after the first month of implementation.

Ensuring Unified Threat Management

Proactive mitigation of ever-evolving security threats is another benefit that sets Adeptcloud apart. They’ve partnered with a number of top security technology companies to develop an environment where customers can store their sensitive client data without a worry of it being lost or encrypted due to a ransomware attack.

Zhirovetskiy also just added top-of-the-line firewalls and threat management services to his INAP solution, noting that Adeptcore will be the only provider he knows of to offer fully unified threat management functionality to clients.

“We work with holistic, two-factor authentication security solutions and deploy those solutions for our partners. They don’t have to do any of it. They just tell us what they want and we build it out and release it to them,” Zhirovetskiy said.

Focusing on End User and Partner Experience

Ultimately, it is Adeptcore’s focus on the end user that makes Adeptcloud work as a successful cloud solution.

“Most companies that get into the business offering a cloud service are focusing strictly on the tech itself,” Zhirovetskiy said. “They don’t focus on the end-user support, they don’t focus on the client experience and they don’t focus on supporting their partners. They focus on selling cloud.”

Partners can get the support they need with Adeptcloud. “When a MSP partner calls our support desk, they talk to someone who is on the same technical level. This is huge for IT companies—they spend less time dealing with the bureaucracy created by huge organizations.”

Scaling Adeptcloud with INAP

Zhirovetskiy has been working with INAP since the founding of Adeptcore, when the company started with one client and one server. Adeptcore wanted a data center company located in Chicago, and chose INAP for its security and service reliability.

“It’s hard to find a global company like INAP that feels like a local company,” he said. “I have a dedicated team and somebody to call who will take care of my needs. That’s the biggest reason I would recommend anybody work with INAP.”

Throughout the relationship with INAP, Zhirovetskiy has worked with his account manager, Steven Anderson, and INAP engineers to scale the Adeptcloud solution. He says that he talks to Anderson on a weekly basis to discuss the future of his solution: “As our platform has evolved, we always know we have experts available to assist us with our growth.”

“INAP support has been instrumental in helping us achieve our goals. From managing downtime to planning our next big thing,” Zhirovetskiy said. “We rely on INAP to provide us infrastructure expertise, while we provide expertise to our clients on what we’re good at—delivering them their desktops every single day.”

Explore INAP’s Data Centers.

Laura Vietmeyer

Given the eye-catching headlines and high-profile disasters, ransomware’s ability to wreak havoc probably needs no introduction.

Case in point: The government of Jackson County, Georgia, was recently forced to pay $400,000 in cryptocurrency to a criminal gang that had taken over the network and encrypted their environment, making it completely unusable. Numerous stories like this can be found in headlines across the globe, taken from the experiences of hospitals, universities and businesses alike.

In 2017, the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center received 1,783 complaints from U.S. organizations that were infected with ransomware. These attacks cost millions of dollars in losses. Yet these numbers represent only a fraction of the total number of attacks, as the vast majority are never reported to the FBI.

Certainly, ransomware can be devastating, but here’s a secret: It doesn’t have to be.

Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) allows you to invalidate the threat of ransomware by creating redundancy in your environment. This blog will cover how that works, but first, let’s take some time to understand ransomware.

What Is Ransomware?

Ransomware comes in many forms, but two main varieties have emerged: locker-ware and crypto-ware. Locker-ware involves a hacker taking control of a specific computer or network and then changing passwords so that systems cannot be accessed. Crypto-ware uses encryption techniques to mask all data, rendering it unreadable or unusable.

In both types of ransomware attacks, the criminals extort the organization, offering to unlock the system only after receiving payment (usually in the form of cryptocurrency).

In 2017, ransomware program WannaCry made headlines, infecting an estimated 200,000 computers and netting its creators roughly $300 every time someone chose to pay to decrypt their computers. The real cost, however, is far greater when you include lost productivity and the work required to recover systems impacted by WannaCry. Estimates ranged from hundreds of millions of dollars, even into the billions.

Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS): The Silver Bullet for Ransomware

The first line of defense against any cyberattack or phishing attempt is proper security training for all employees. Foundational security measures include training employees to validate links before clicking them and verifying the identity and legitimacy of senders. For example, a common trick of hackers involves replacing or switching letters in email addresses to make them appear legitimate (e.g., lnap.com vs. inap.com). Every organization should have strong group policy objects set for their end users, such as enforcing unique passwords, limiting the installation of software and disabling forced system restarts.

One of the best ways to protect your organization from ransomware is to put in place Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) for your critical applications and infrastructure. DRaaS comes in different flavors, and which option you go with will depend on your recovery needs: i.e., Recovery Point Objectives and Recovery Time Objectives. Read our blog on RPO and RTO to learn about what these mean.

Regardless of how often you need to back up (RPO) or how quickly you need your applications to be online (RTO), DRaaS is a straightforward, effective way to neutralize the threat of ransomware.

Here’s how: DRaaS safeguards your physical and virtual systems by creating a functionally redundant environment that you can switch on in the case of any disaster. This minimizes downtime and its impact on your business, while ensuring that you have a “clean” environment that is safe from any malware—ransomware or otherwise.

If attackers do gain control of your systems, all you have to do is contact your DRaaS service provider to begin the recovery process. As an INAP customer, you can call, email or log in to your portal to immediately let us know what’s happened. We will work with you to verify what systems or files need to be recovered, confirm the recovery point you need, then begin a full recovery to overwrite the compromised environment. This process will usually follow a detailed runbook that is collaboratively designed when the DRaaS solution was first implemented as part of our white glove onboarding.

Learn More About INAP Disaster Recovery as a Service

INAP offers two kinds of Disaster Recovery as a Service: On-Demand DRaaS and Dedicated DRaaS. Both offer redundancy and protection from ransomware—built on our secure, high-performance private cloud. We also offer disaster recovery testing to evaluate your DRaaS solution’s efficacy in a realistic scenario, in addition to a white glove onboarding service.

With a DRaaS solution in place, you can feel confident that your environments are safe from would-be hijackers and, most importantly, costly downtime—whether caused by ransomware, natural disaster, human error or anything else.